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The cash-strapped London ­District Catholic school board will close classrooms and eliminate 22 support staff, including seven school librarians, as it struggles with declining enrolment.

Business superintendent ­Jacquie Davison said the board has lost 14% of its enrolment during the past five years.

“Each year, we have been making the cuts necessary to balance, but this year it’s getting closer to the bone,” Davison said.

The number of school librarians staffing the board’s 45 ­elementary schools will be reduced to 29 from 36. Davison said all the elementary schools will still have a librarian but the number of hours will be reduced, with some libraries staffed only two days a week.

Davison said the board receives provincial money to cover only 22 librarians.

“We are still staffing more than the money we are getting from the ministry. If you have fewer kids in a school you don’t necessarily need a full-time librarian,” Davison said.

In addition to the cuts to librarians’ jobs, the board is laying off three tech support positions, two in maintenance and 3.6 in clerical support. Another six Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) positions are being eliminated through attrition.

All the cutbacks affect members of CUPE Local 4186.

The board held a public input meeting Monday night on its budget.

In a presentation to the board, Local 4186 president Moira Bell said the board is hiring a superintendent and more human resource staff while support services directly affecting students are cut.

“Administration is proposing balancing the budget on the backs of front-line workers. CUPE workers are feeling disposable, devalued and dismissed,” Bell said.

The board also is closing classrooms to save money.

In a presentation to the board, music teacher Theresa Mathers said that will have a negative impact on music and French teachers, who will not have their own classrooms to use.

“The quality and kind of music program or French program is restricted by the lack of space and materials afforded by having one’s own classroom,” Mathers said in her brief to the board.

Davison said the board eliminated 47 teaching positions this year by offering early retirement incentives.

The board still faces a $2-million budget shortfall but avoided teacher layoffs this year by dipping into a reserve fund.

The teacher layoffs may have been more severe but the board will shift 23 elementary teachers into kindergarten classrooms as it moves to fully implement full-day kindergarten in September. Another 16 early childhood educators also will be hired.

“The system from Grade 1 to eight is actually shrinking but we need more kindergarten teachers,” Davison said.